


Barton vs Coulson

by superangsty



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, I really love phil swearing okay, I think he might actually swear more than fury in this fic, M/M, and of course because its clint and phil, because they are both idiots, clint and phil have a massive fight, i dont even know, maybe a little more extreme, phil swears quite a bit, the fight is pretty much just a prank war, they terrify all the junior agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superangsty/pseuds/superangsty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“S-sir, I was sent to tell you that, uh, that it’s happening.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Those were the exact words?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Yes, sir.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“For fuck’s sake…” Fury sighs, running a hand down his face before continuing. “My money was on next month.”</i>
</p>
<p>In which Clint and Phil are fighting, and everybody else at SHIELD gets caught in the crossfire</p>
            </blockquote>





	Barton vs Coulson

The shared office space of SHIELD’s field agents was, as an unspoken rule, the safest part of SHIELD HQ. Not safe in the sense that it was more secure, because that wouldn’t be anywhere near the truth; there were some floors that were so highly secured and classified that legally, they didn’t exist. No, it was instead safe in the sense that it was guaranteed you would never have to talk to, or even see, any senior agents, be it your handler or somebody even higher ranking than that. As far as most people were aware, none of the senior agents had ever even stepped onto the floor, instead choosing to either send down an intern or their assistant, or to summon whichever agent they needed up to their own office.

Which is why, when Agent Coulson steps out of the elevator, there is a collective intake of breath. Every agent in the room, rooted in place, watches silently as Coulson storms through the room, his expression as calm as always, the only thing betraying his emotions being the glint of rage in his eyes. They watch, still silent, as he stops in front of Agent Barton’s desk, waiting for the other man to look at him before dropping a ridiculously large stack of paperwork onto the desk and walking out, glaring at any agents that didn’t look back at their work in time.

Once the elevator doors shut again, everybody lets out a breath that they hadn’t realised they were holding, and they turn to look at Barton, who is staring at the paperwork with a calculating look on his face, as if he’s planning an attack. It takes far too long for the first person to realise that he probably is.

“Holy shit, we need somebody to go see Fury.”

There’s a rustle of movement as everybody who had been away from their desks rushes back to their seats, leaving standing only a couple of junior agents, who were too new to know any better.

“You. You know where Fury’s office is?” the agent being pointed at gives a small nod in reply. “Good. Go up there and tell him that ‘it’s happening’. He’ll know what you mean.”

The agent scurries to the elevator, trying not to shake as it takes him up to Fury’s office. Being new to SHIELD, he had never even seen the man in person, never mind _talked_ to him. He knocks on the door, and, hearing Fury call out “Come in”, he walks into the office.

“S-sir, I was sent to tell you that, uh, that it’s happening.”

“Those were the exact words?”

“Yes, sir.”

“For fuck’s sake…” Fury sighs, running a hand down his face before continuing. “My money was on next month.”

 

~***~

 

For all intents and purposes, Agents Coulson and Barton are the perfect couple. They rarely do missions separately; they work better together, and Coulson is the only handler who agrees to work with Barton, and so they’re generally considered to be a package deal. Their personal relationship is just as good, if not more so, as their working one. After all, they’ve been married so long that most people find it difficult to remember a time that they _weren’t._ Those closest to them are in agreement that they’re ‘disgustingly cute’, much cuter than would be expected of people as deadly as those two. The only time they clash is when a mission goes wrong, and Coulson has to argue with Barton about things like acceptable risks. But other than that, they hardly even bicker.

Except, of course, for the one week each year when they _explode_ , and it becomes not so much an argument as a full out war.

It would be worrying enough if it were any normal couple, but if you add to that the fact that they’re both super-spies who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses better than they know their own, and it becomes terrifying.

Well, the junior agents find it terrifying, anyway. The more senior agents find it hilarious, and have a betting pool on everything about it, from things like which month it will be in to things like who would start it that year.

Fury may have lost the bet on when it would start (and he definitely isn’t bitter about that, not at all, nope. He definitely doesn’t care that if they had waited just _two more days_ he would have won), but at least he rakes in some cash when they find out that Phil started it that year. Everyone else had bet on Clint. To be fair, it was normally Clint. Fury just enjoys being contradictory, and it’s even better when he’s right and everyone else is wrong.

 

~***~

 

After Phil’s presentation of the paperwork, it’s Clint’s turn to make a move. He decides to start it small, so all he does is swap the regular coffee for decaf. In every single coffee maker in the entirety of SHIELD HQ. He does it at midnight, because he’d really rather not have to deal with everybody getting in the way. It takes him hours, and a lot of less-than-legal entering of rooms before he’s sure that he’s definitely swapped all the coffee. He hides the regular coffee in the vents, because hey, just because everybody else is suffering doesn’t mean that he has to as well.

The next morning, as people slowly start to trickle in, it becomes apparent just how dependent on caffeine most SHIELD agents are. Half asleep, most of them just silently (and in some cases, not so silently) wish that the week would just hurry up and be over already.

 

~***~

 

“Hey, uh, Agent Walker, what’s going on?”

“You’re new around here, aren’t you?”

“I was just recruited a couple of months ago.”

“Well, you’ll see what’s going on soon enough. Word of advice: do the best you can to avoid Agents Coulson and Barton.”

“But they’re so nice!”

“Not this week, they’re not.”

 

~***~

 

As soon as he arrives and realises what’s going on, Phil turns on his heel and leaves the building, heading to the closest coffee shop to HQ. He arrives back moments later with a pack of doughnuts and six cups of coffee. He takes coffee up to Fury, Hill, May, and Sitwell, because:

a)      They’re his friends, and friends bring each other coffee

b)      Along with him, they’re some of the busiest people in SHIELD, and he doubts they would have time to go get their own coffee, and

c)       There is nothing more terrifying than one of them without any caffeine

(He also takes a cup to Natasha, but that’s mostly just to spite Clint.)

Once he’s acquired his coffee, Phil shuts himself in his office and boots up the computer, quickly pulling up files and typing line upon line of code. He isn’t seen for the rest of the morning.

When Clint goes down to the range, his ID card isn’t accepted, and he can’t get in. He doesn’t think much of it, assuming that somebody else is using it and doesn’t want to be disturbed, but then because more and more agitated as he realises that his ID isn’t accepted by _any_ door, except for one that opens into a stationery supply closet on the lowest sub-level.

 

~***~

 

Clint, since he can’t go train on the range or in the gym, and he can’t get into his office to do actual work, decides to make the most of his time off and goes home to grab his spare set of bow and arrows, loading his quiver mostly with normal arrows, although he includes a few of his favourite trick ones as well (whoever said that putty arrows were useless had clearly never been in Clint’s situation before). He returns to headquarters and spends the rest of the day going around shooting whatever takes his fancy. There ends up being at least ten arrows in Phil’s door.

At the sight of Clint with his bow, most agents scatter out of the way as quickly as possible, because even though they know that he would never shoot a person if he didn’t have to, they’re still terrified that they’re going to somehow get hit.

Several complaints are made about the fact that there are arrows sticking out of everything.

By the end of the day, Clint’s ID card allows him full access again.

 

~***~

 

Fury calls an unofficial meeting with Hill, May, Sitwell, and Romanoff. “Well, that’s one day down. Have we managed to deal with the damage from today?”

Hill, ever efficient, quickly replies with “Yes, sir. Headquarters is back to how it was. Not much damage today, but it’s early days yet.”

“Good. Next order of business – which of you is each of them staying with?” From past experience, Fury knows that their house is neutral ground, and so the two generally pick somebody to stay with, changing each year so that the other can’t find them there.

The other agents glance at each other, having a silent conversation, before each of them replies with “Not me, sir.”

“We’ll have to keep an eye on that, then. You’re dismissed.”

 

~***~

 

Clint, deciding that since working at midnight worked so well for him the day before, stays up again to carry out his next plan. He starts much earlier this time, as soon as he’s sure that Phil is gone, because this particular plan requires a _lot_ of work. It would, of course, have been easier if he had help, but when he’d asked Natasha she had just looked at him as if he was crazy and walked away. So he works alone, trying his best to make sure that none of the agents see what he’s doing.

It’s the early hours of the morning when Clint is finally finished, standing and looking around at Phil’s now completely empty office. He’s proud, after all, he had moved everything without any assistance, and that requires effort. Lots of effort. Especially with the desk, he had worried for a few moments that he wouldn’t be able to get it out the door. So yes, he’s proud. And maybe there’s a twinge of guilt in the back of his mind, but he pushes it away.

He doesn’t need to feel guilty, Phil had it coming.

 

~***~

 

When Phil walks into his office the next day, he does a double take, because for a moment he isn’t entirely sure that it _is_ his office. He walks out, double and triple checks that he’s on the right floor, in the right corridor, before walking back into his office. Which is a completely empty room. Everything is gone: the desk, the chairs, the cabinets, the books. Hell, even the potted plant he keeps by the window is gone. (That, in particular, isn’t a huge loss. The plant is hideous, he only keeps it because it was a gift from Clint.)

Once he’s sure that yes, this is his office, and yes, there’s nothing in it, he uses his phone to write out a memo to all SHIELD personnel, with a full inventory of what’s missing, and with the promise that whoever took it (he doesn’t specify who. It’s not as if it could be anyone but Clint) will have the money needed to replace it all taken out of their salary.

With that, he leaves his office, pacing down the corridors and giving his ‘death glare’ to anybody that doesn’t scatter out of the way fast enough. He goes down to the armoury and grabs all of Clint’s arrows, gets out one of his knives and chips away at the flights – not so much that there’s any visible change, but enough that they’ll be unbalanced when Clint tries to shoot them.

When he arrives back at his office, he sees an agent pinning something to his door. They scramble away as he walks towards them, leaving the area around his door free for him to look at what’s on the piece of paper. It turns out to be a map of HQ highlighting where all his things were. Well, he thinks, you’ve got to appreciate how efficient agents of SHIELD are.

 

~***~

 

By lunchtime, everybody at headquarters has heard about what Barton did to Coulson’s office, and so they’re all staring at Barton in awe as he sits alone in the cafeteria, eating his lunch. Usually, he would sit at a crowded table, but at the moment everyone is too terrified of him to even talk to him, never mind _sit next to him_ , and so his table is completely empty but for him.

When Coulson arrives, he stands at the entrance to the cafeteria, his eyes locked with Barton’s across the room. Barton’s eyes are challenging, testing whether or not Coulson will come in or not, but Coulson seems completely unaffected, and after a few _very_ long moments of tense silence, he simply looks away and goes to get a sandwich, sitting down at a different empty table, as far away from Barton as possible.

The newer agents are relieved that there was no big fight, and the older agents are confused. They go through this every year, they know the drill, and they know that usually if Coulson and Barton so much as see each other during the fight, there will be trouble. So something doesn’t seem right.

This feeling of wrongness quickly goes away however, when Coulson picks up his sandwich, and a quiet _whoosh_ is heard, causing the agents to all instinctively duck out of the way as a knife flies past them, hitting the exact centre of Coulson’s sandwich.

Coulson simply glances at the knife and raises an eyebrow before he continues eating, not even bothering to remove the knife.

 

~***~

 

“Coulson.”

“Fury.”

“I think it’s time to call a truce.”

“But we’re only on the third day. We still have two days left. The opposition hasn’t even made their strike today.”

“Oh, yes they have. And believe me when I say that this has already gone too far. It’s time to call a truce.”

“What happened, sir?”

“Just remember, it’s easy to repair, we’ll have people get to it as soon as you’ve given them the go-ahead.”

“What. Happened.”

“I think you need to go down to the parking lot and see for yourself.”

 

~***~

 

Phil rushes out of his office and down to the parking lot as soon as Fury’s left his office, because he knows that there’s only one thing down there that Clint would go for. Heart racing, he walks as fast as he can, trying his best not to break into a run, because that would be unprofessional. Once he gets to the parking lot he moves, almost on autopilot, to the spot he knows to look in, and goes completely still when he sees what’s happened.

Lola, his most prized possession, the car he had practically built himself, has a series of long, white scratches on the paintwork. Phil gently runs his fingers over the scratches, making sure that yes, they really are there, and then steps back, giving a curt nod to the people waiting to start fixing the scratches (because apparently Fury’s minions were just _that_ quick to respond). As he watches them work, his hand slowly clenches into a fist, ever so slightly shaking with rage.

He was going to _kill_ that man.

 

~***~

 

When Phil goes back to his office, he pauses at the door, looking up at the ceiling and working out how likely it is that Clint is hiding in the vents. He decides that it’s pretty likely, so yells out “Barton! Get your fucking ass into this office _right now_ or so help me god I will tear every limb from your stupid fucking body!”

Clint appears from nowhere, yelling back “Screw you, sir!”, before trying to disappear again. He doesn’t succeed, because Phil is too fast and grabs hold of him, dragging him into his office and locking the door behind him.

He speaks quickly, voice only slightly below a shout. “You crossed the line, Barton. You know full well that you can do pretty much whatever the fuck you want but you do not. Touch. Lola.”

“Well you should have been prepared for something like this! You’re the one who started this whole thing!”

“Oh, _I’m_ the one who started it now, am I? Because I’m pretty sure that this is all because of you!”

At that, Clint goes silent for a moment, contemplating, before he replies, much quieter than they had been speaking before. “Wait… what exactly are we fighting about, again?”

“Um.”

“Huh.”

Clint looks at Phil with an expression that says _what can you do?_ , and then, within a split second, he’s grabbed Phil’s shoulders and is pushing him against the wall, channelling all his pent up anger instead into kissing Phil hungrily. Phil responds in kind, one hand gripping Clint’s hip tight enough to bruise, and the other tangling in his hair.

 

~***~

 

All the other SHIELD agents, realising that the fight is over, remind themselves to stay away from Coulson’s office for a while, as they have to do every year.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I hope you enjoyed it! (and, as always, I apologise that the ending was so rushed. I suck at endings. I'm sorry."
> 
> Please leave comments below, I love hearing what you guys think!
> 
> Also, feel free to check out my [tumblr](http://superangsty.tumblr.com)!


End file.
